Event Calendar

Understanding the effectiveness of foreign aid is a top priority for development research. But effectiveness at what? Research has focused on how foreign aid affects poverty or growth, but anecdotal evidence suggests that donors often use aid for other ends. We test whether donors use bilateral foreign aid to influence elections in developing countries. We find that recipient country administrations closely aligned with a donor receive more aid during election years, while those less aligned receive less. Consistent with our interpretation, this effect holds only in competitive elections and U.S. aid to non-government entities follows an opposite pattern. (This work is joint with Michael Faye.)

This year's World TB Day marks the halfway point for the Global Plan to Stop TB. We must scale up efforts and continue to seek innovative ways to stop TB if we are to achieve our targets. Join us for a discussion of TB and drug-resistant TB, including the impact on global health and the current state of surveillance, diagnosis and treatment around the world.

CGD non-resident fellow Paul Romer is a professor at Stanford University and is one of the leading growth economists of our time. He will discuss his idea for a profoundly new way to reduce poverty in the developing world: chartering new cities to create centers of growth and prosperity within developing countries. These cities let people voluntarily move to a place with rules that provide security, economic opportunity, and improved quality of life. Charter cities give leaders more options for improving governance and investors more opportunities to finance socially beneficial infrastructure projects. They also harness the forces that have been among the most successful at reducing poverty in developing countries over the past few decades.

Abstract: We see signs of convergence in average living standards amongst developing countries and of greater progress against poverty in faster growing economies. Yet we do not see poverty convergence; the poorest countries are not enjoying higher rates of poverty reduction. The paper tries to explain why. Consistently with some growth theories, analysis of a new data set for 100 developing countries reveals an adverse effect on consumption growth of high initial poverty incidence at a given initial mean. Starting with a high incidence of poverty also entails a lower rate of progress against poverty at any given growth rate (and conversely poor countries tend to experience less steep increases in poverty during recessions). Thus, for many poor countries, the growth advantage of starting out with a low mean is lost due to their high poverty rates. The size of the middle class—measured by developing-country, not Western, standards—appears to be an important channel linking current poverty to subsequent growth and poverty reduction. However, high current inequality is only a handicap if it entails a high incidence of poverty relative to mean consumption.

Abstract: Health systems are among the most important elements of the social contract that defines modern nations. This paper investigates the historical origins of universal health care (UHC) systems and analyzes the politics surrounding the national decision to implement them. Understanding how, when, and why countries have established UHC systems sheds light on current international assistance strategies to encourage the same transition in developing countries. First, Dr. Bump analyzes definitions of UHC to distill the important elements and discuss their primary assumptions, including their commitments to solidarity, redistribution, and government responsibility. He then focuses on the development of the two main financing models--social health insurance (Germany) and general taxation (United Kingdom)--and then follows global-level attempts to promote UHC over the past century. Dr. Bump finds that international aid agencies have not played a significant role in fostering the spread of UHC systems in the past. Beyond the possibility of fostering international learning and providing resources, there is no clear evidence in support of any particular role for international actors in fostering UHC systems.

What is the fallout of a blackout? Relying on 350 household surveys and 20,000 birth records collected during field work, I show that a month-long blackout in Zanzibar reduced average birth weights for children born seven to nine months later and increased the probability of low birth weight. Low birth weights have permanent, negative effects on infant growth, learning, and other adult outcomes. The most likely cause of the reduction in birth weights is maternal under-nutrition caused by the temporary reduction in earnings during the blackout. Only women who were in the early stages of pregnancy were affected; they may not have known they were pregnant at the time of the blackout, suggesting that visibly pregnant women maintained proper nutrition despite of the income loss. Alternative explanations are examined, including the possible effects of a temporary fertility shift. It is shown that the blackout increased births, and the increase was more pronounced among women (teenagers, older women) who are more likely to deliver small babies.

Using rainfall, public relief, and election data from India, we examine how governments respond to adverse shocks and how voters react to these responses. The data show that voters punish the incumbent party for weather events beyond its control. However, fewer voters punish the ruling party when its government responds vigorously to the crisis, indicating that voters reward the government for responding to disasters. We also find evidence suggesting that voters only respond to rainfall and government relief efforts during the year immediately preceding the election. In accordance with these electoral incentives, governments appear to be more generous with disaster relief in election years. These results describe how failures in electoral accountability can lead to suboptimal policy outcomes.

Many poverty alleviation programs fail due to political interference. Politicians frequently undermine development efforts when they target benefits using political criteria. To improve poverty outcomes, we must understand the logic of such politicized targeting. Studies typically assume that politicians engage in "vote buying," bribing the poor to switch their vote choices. My research challenges this assumption by drawing attention to strategies overlooked in earlier studies. For example, politicians often engage in "turnout buying," rewarding supporters for showing up at the polls. Econometric analyses of survey data from Argentina provide evidence of turnout buying. I then develop a model to analyze why the prevalence of each strategy differs across developing countries. Finally, I consider the important strategic role that citizens play in exchange relationships. Based on 18 months of qualitative fieldwork in Brazil, my research suggests that the poor often engage in "declared choice," signaling their votes to politicians in order to obtain benefits. Such findings have important implications for ways in which practitioners can reduce political interference in development projects.

Abstract: This paper investigates the impact of propaganda on participation in violent conflict. I examine the effects of the infamous "hate radio" station Radio RTLM that called for the extermination of the Tutsi ethnic minority population before and during the 1994 Rwanda Genocide. I develop a model of participation in ethnic violence where radio broadcasts a noisy public signal about the value of violence. I then test the model’s predictions using a nation-wide village-level dataset on radio coverage and prosecutions for genocide violence. To identify causal effects, I exploit arguably exogenous variation in radio coverage generated by hills in the line-of-sight between radio transmitters and villages. Consistent with the model under strategic complements in violence, I find that Radio RTLM increased participation in violence, that the effects were decreasing in ethnic polarization, highly non-linear in radio coverage, and decreasing in literacy rates. Finally, the estimated effects are substantial. Complete village radio coverage increased violence by 65 to 77 percent, and a simple counter-factual calculation suggests that approximately 9 percent of the genocide, corresponding to at least 45 000 Tutsi deaths, can be explained by the radio station.

Please join us in honoring Diego Hidalgo Schnur, the 2009 winner of the Commitment to Development Ideas in Action Award, sponsored jointly by the Center for Global Development (CGD) and Foreign Policy magazine. Hidalgo’s career reflects his resolute dedication to helping the world’s poorest people. He is the founder or key sponsor of numerous organizations committed to promoting development and democracy across the globe. These include: Development Assistance Research Associates (DARA), which produces the Humanitarian Response Index; the Foundation for Research and Investment for the Development of Africa (FRIDA), an NGO that promotes cooperation and development projects in the continent’s poorest countries; and the Toledo International Centre for Peace (CITpax), a Spanish think tank. Hidalgo also serves as president of the Fundación par alas Relaciones Internacionales y el Diálogo Exterior, (FRIDE), a Madrid-based think tank that provides innovative ideas on Europe's role in the international arena. The award, bestowed annually since 2003, honors an individual or organization that has made a significant contribution to changing attitudes and policies towards the developing world.

The CSIS Global Health Policy Center cordially invites you to an address by Dr. Margaret Hamburg, the 21st Commissioner of Food and Drugs at the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. Dr. Hamburg will speak about the challenges and opportunities ahead in ensuring safe food and drug imports into the United States. Following her keynote presentation, J. Stephen Morrison, Director of CSIS's Global Health Policy Center, will moderate a discussion between Reuben Jeffery III, Senior Adviser, President's Office at CSIS; Thomas Bollyky, Visiting Fellow at the Center for Global Development; and Henry Chin, M.D., of the Coca-Cola Company.

Abstract: Patronage is a tool used throughout the world to reward political allies. In this paper I create a dataset of Yemeni tribes to explore their role in an educational patronage network that accounts for upwards of 6% of the entire Yemeni government budget. My analysis has two key results. First, conditional on a rich set of controls, I find that the number of tribes has a significant impact on the quantity of patronage. This impact is negative between regions, though positive within regions, as regions with more tribes have less patronage while sub-regions with more tribes have more patronage. The contrast between these effects illustrates the differing influence of tribes in local and national politics. Second, I find no evidence that a recent decentralization reform affected this patronage network. The paper provides insight into how pre-Islamic institutions have an important role in the development outcomes of the Muslim Middle East and why decentralization reforms proposed for countries similar to Yemen, such as Afghanistan and Somalia, may be ineffective in weakening the power of local elites.

Abstract: Some individuals who are destitute report to be happy, while others who are very wealthy report to be miserable. There are many possible explanations for this paradox; this paper focuses on the role of adaptation. Adaptation is the subject of much work in economics, but its definition is a psychological one. Adaptations are defense mechanisms; there are bad ones like paranoia, and healthy ones like humor, anticipation, and sublimation. Set point theory--which is the subject of much debate in psychology--posits that people can adapt to anything, such as bad health, divorce, and extreme poverty, and return to a natural level of cheerfulness. My research from around the world, meanwhile, suggests that people are remarkably adaptable. Respondents in Afghanistan, for example, are as happy as Latin Americans and 20% more likely to smile in a day than Cubans. I posit that while this may be a good thing from an individual psychological perspective, it may also facilitate collective tolerance for bad equilibrium. I provide examples from the economics, democracy, crime, corruption and health arenas.

Abstract: A large literature examines the occupational mobility of immigrants and the potential underuse of their human capital in destination countries. Immigrants typically experience a U-shape pattern of occupational change, from their last job in the origin country to their first and then subsequent jobs in the destination country. Many never re-attain the same occupational status of their last job in the origin country. Yet such studies may understate the occupational cost of migrating since the last job in the origin country is not the correct counterfactual; immigrants may have experienced occupational change even if they had never migrated. In this paper, we use a migration lottery to see if bias results from use of this counterfactual. A unique longitudinal survey designed by the authors compares occupational change for migrants who enter New Zealand through a random ballot with occupational change for similar workers in the home country of Tonga who were unsuccessful participants in the same ballots. (Joint work with David McKenzie and Steven Stillman)

Please join the Center for Global Development for a major address by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on the role and impact of U.S. global development efforts. The Obama administration has pledged to elevate development to a much more prominent role in U.S. foreign policy alongside defense and diplomacy, and towards that end has launched both a Presidential Study Directive on U.S. global development policy and the first-ever Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review. Nearly a year into her new role, Secretary Clinton will share her views on new directions in U.S. global development policy and its importance at home and abroad.

The CSIS Global Health Policy Center cordially invites you to an address by Dr. Margaret Hamburg, the 21st Commissioner of Food and Drugs at the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. Dr. Hamburg will speak about the challenges and opportunities ahead in ensuring safe food and drug imports into the United States. Following her keynote presentation, J. Stephen Morrison, Director of CSIS’s Global Health Policy Center, will moderate a discussion between Charles Freeman, Chair in China Studies at CSIS; Thomas Bollyky, Visiting Fellow at the Center for Global Development, and Dr. Henry Chin of the Coca-Cola Company.

Latin America’s response to the global financial crisis has been remarkably strong. Effective use of fiscal, monetary and exchange rate policies allowed Latin America to fare better than other parts of the world and better than the region itself during previous global economic crises. But macroeconomic disequilibria in high-income countries—especially rising fiscal deficits and sovereign debt in the United States and parts of Europe—run the risk of becoming unsustainable. The Latin America Shadow Financial Regulatory Committee will meet in December 2009 to discuss the following related issues, and then share its conclusions in a public presentation. • What are the main economic imbalances in industrial countries threatening the stability of Latin American countries? • Are we, as some analysts argue, witnessing the formation of another bubble, this time involving the value of assets of emerging markets, especially those in Latin America? • Does Latin America have adequate tools to face fresh disruptions in international capital markets? Or did it exhaust its arsenal of policy options in dealing with the recent crisis? • Should countries follow the example of Brazil and try to dampen the effects of volatile capital inflows through capital controls? Can controls work in the current environment?

Haitian girls and young women living in Port-au-Prince are particularly vulnerable to HIV infection, with a much higher HIV prevalence than the general population. Since the early 1980s, the Haitian Study Group on Kaposi's Sarcoma and Opportunistic Infections (GHESKIO) has provided care for HIV/AIDS, other sexually transmitted infections (STIs), diarrhea, and tuberculosis (TB) through its community- and clinic-based services. In her presentation, Dr. Marie Marcelle Deschamps, Secretary General of GHESKIO, will discuss the successes and limitations of GHESKIO's work to curb HIV infection among adolescent girls--with a specific emphasis on the challenges of working with a population with high levels of poverty and violence.

Today's development challenges are complicated by climate change, a reality that threatens all countries, particularly developing ones. The World Development Report (WDR) 2010 aims to understand what climate change means for development.

Andrew Mitchell, MP, UK Shadow Minister for International Development, will be speaking about the UK Conservative Party's development policy and plans, including the main elements of the "green paper" issued recently. One World Conservatism lays out the Tory strategy for fighting global poverty and how the UK aid regime may change if the Conservative Party wins next year's elections.

On December 9th, the Board of Directors of the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) will meet to select the countries that will be eligible to apply for funds from the FY2010 pool of resources. This deliberation marks the seventh round of the MCC eligibility selection process, and many interesting factors come into play this year. In addition to examining individual country performance on the indicators, the MCA Monitor explores current issues affecting the MCC’s selection process including income graduation, budget uncertainty, second compacts, and successful compact implementation in a new paper entitled “Round Seven of the MCA.” This event features a discussion with Sheila Herrling, Director of CGD’s Rethinking U.S. Foreign Assistance Program, about the MCA Monitor’s selection forecast and what principles should guide the MCC Board and new management team as they choose eligible countries for FY2010.

Abstract:(Joint work with Simon Johnson, William Larson, and Chris Papageorgiou.) This paper explores important problems in the most common database used by economists to make international comparisons of income and growth--the Penn World Table (PWT) GDP estimates. We focus on two problems: variability and valuation. We show that these estimates vary substantially across different versions of the PWT despite being derived from similar underlying data and using similar methodologies; that this variability is systematic; and that it is intrinsic to the methodology deployed by the PWT to estimate growth rates. Moreover, this variability matters for the cross-country growth literature. While growth studies that use low frequency data remain robust to data revisions, studies that use annual data are less robust. The raison d’être of the PWT is to adjust national estimates of GDP by valuing output at common international (purchasing power parity [PPP]) prices so that the resulting PPP-adjusted estimates of GDP are comparable across countries. But we find, surprisingly, that the PWT methodology leads to GDP estimates that are not valued at PPP prices. We propose an approach to address these problems of variability and valuation.

Forest clearing in developing countries is an enormous contributor to global warming, accounting for about 15% of annual greenhouse gas emissions. The Bali Action Plan seeks ways to reward countries for reducing these emissions--an agenda known as REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation). Effective implementation of REDD is an intense topic of discussion in the negotiations leading up to Copenhagen. Many observers envision financial flows in the billions of dollars per year, and substantial pilot efforts are already being sponsored by UN-REDD, the World Bank's Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF), and the Norwegian International Climate and Forest Initiative.